AI Prompts Used by Expert Are Subject to Compelled Discovery |
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AI in Court
AI Prompts Used by Expert Are Subject to Compelled Discovery
Eugene Volokh | 5.26.2026 11:01 AM
From Judge Thomas O. Farrish (D. Conn.) last Monday in Conservation Law Foundation, Inc. v. Shell Oil Co.:
The defendants, Shell Oil Company and others ("Defendants"), have moved the Court for an order compelling the plaintiff, Conservation Law Foundation, Inc. ("CLF"), to produce materials on which its expert witness, Dr. Naomi Oreskes, relied upon in producing her expert witness report…. The parties … had resolved all issues identified in the letter briefs except for "their dispute concerning Defendants' request for the prompts Dr. Oreskes used in conducting her AI analysis and outputs." …
CLF first protests that artificial intelligence prompts used by an expert witness are not within the scope of discovery under Rule 26(b), but the Court disagrees. An expert witness's methodology is fair ground for discovery, and under the facts of this case, the process by which Dr. Oreskes culled down the defendants' document production into a subset to be worked with is an aspect of that methodology.
CLF then argues that the prompts are outside the scope of a Rule 29 discovery agreement between........